Via Em & Lo, Emily Nussbaum, writing in New York Magazine says
Earlier this month, the journal PLoS Medicine analyzed data from a study of over 50,000 pregnant women and came to a simple but stunning conclusion: Older fathers have dumber kids. The more geriatric the dad, the dimmer the progeny, on measures including “thinking and reasoning, concentration, memory, understanding, speaking, and reading.” (Luckily, geezer offspring had no problems with motor skills, making them ideal for wheeling around their elderly dads.)
It was another unsettling addition to the growing pile of evidence that men have their own biological clocks, with older fathers also producing higher rates of schizophrenia and autism. But what really caught my eye was the secondary finding, which was that older mothers were associated with smarter children. I quickly did the calculations and was pleased with my findings. The most intelligent children, I deduced, must be the outcome of 45-year-old career women inseminated by their 21-year-old personal trainers.
Oddly usual amen chorus of ev-psych/sociobiology apologists are silent on this confirmation of the exact opposite of traditional gender ideology and sexual stereotype.
Mind you the actual authors of the study (who I’ve heard interviewed) are clear that the decline in intelligence with paternal age is very real, it’s also very, very slight — on the order of one IQ point drop for every ten years or so after the father turns 35.
Not that that’s ever stopped pop-evobios before…
Hmm, must be some other reason. Can’t imagine what that might be.
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Seriously, a one or two point IQ drop isn’t a terribly serious liability for offspring of older parents. Certainly not compared to the many other, potentially much more serious liabilities.
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And speaking of other liabilities, the most recent but still substantially scientifically unverified being a sixfold correlation between older fathers and children with autism. And considering how, um, cautious people have been about extremely difficult to confirm links between autism and vaccination a strong, 6x correlation with paternal age ought to be a category-five, slam-dunk, outta-tha-ballpark red flag.
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It might not be the most important reason for older gentlemen to become “extinguished members” of the vasectomy party. But it’s not a bad one. (By contrast an excellent reason being that sex is just more enjoyable when the possibility of unplanned, unwanted pregnancy is remote.)
[Note: “Continue reading…” image is… almost modest but still better viewed in private. —fl]
